The song "Fortnight" by Taylor Swift and Post Malone tells a story about strong feelings, complicated relationships, and secret wishes. It talks about love, betrayal, and wanting someone who doesn't feel the same. The word "fortnight" shows short-lived happiness and guilty pleasures, leading to sadness. It shows how messy relationships can be and the results of hiding emotions. “I was supposed to be sent away / But they forgot to come and get me,” she kickstarts the song in the first verse with lines suggesting an admission to a hospital for people with mental illnesses. She goes in the verse admitting her lover is the reason why she is like this. In the chorus, she sings about their time in love and reflects on how he has now settled with someone else. “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary / And I love you, it’s ruining my life,” on the second verse she details her struggles to forget about him and the negative effects of her failure. “Thought of callin’ ya, but you won’t pick up / ‘Nother fortnight lost in America,” Post Malone sings in the outro.
Some plans were made and rice was thrown
A house was built, a baby born
How time can move both fast and slow amazes me
And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand
You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands
There's no difference you can make
There's no difference you can make
And if it seems like an accident
A collage of senselessness
You aren't looking hard enough
I wasn't looking hard enough at it
An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who makes love to the flowerbed
And dies in the first freeze
Oh, I want to learn such simple things
No politics, no history
Till what I want and what I need
Can finally be the same
I just got myself to blame
Leave everything up to fate
When there's choices I could make
When there's choices I could make
Now my heart needs a polygraph
Always so eager to pack my bags
When I really wanna to stay
When I really wanna to stay
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can't protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks not to accept its fate
That's faith, there's happiness in death
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
The levity of longing that
Distills each dream inside my head
By morning watered down forget
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
A house was built, a baby born
How time can move both fast and slow amazes me
And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand
You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands
There's no difference you can make
There's no difference you can make
And if it seems like an accident
A collage of senselessness
You aren't looking hard enough
I wasn't looking hard enough at it
An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who makes love to the flowerbed
And dies in the first freeze
Oh, I want to learn such simple things
No politics, no history
Till what I want and what I need
Can finally be the same
I just got myself to blame
Leave everything up to fate
When there's choices I could make
When there's choices I could make
Now my heart needs a polygraph
Always so eager to pack my bags
When I really wanna to stay
When I really wanna to stay
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
When I wanna stay (when I wanna stay)
The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can't protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks not to accept its fate
That's faith, there's happiness in death
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
The levity of longing that
Distills each dream inside my head
By morning watered down forget
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
Lyrics submitted by apocalypse84
I Believe in Symmetry Lyrics as written by Conor Oberst
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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More Featured Meanings
Fortnight
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
I think that Conor is really only saying one thing in this song. Imo it's not about free will versus determinism, it's about how both of them mesh together to make our lives. Our fates are determined already. Nothing is left up to chance, nothing is random, nothing happens by accident. Every second of the day is already planned out. Everything is inevitable, including death. The free will is how you choose to interpret this and whether or not you accept it. I think he's saying more that our thoughts and conclusions about fate are free will, not fate itself. Whether it's because of Science or some higher-being, what will happen will happen. You just have to choose whether or not to accept it.
If you go off of this, he's also sort of saying that as long as you've chosen something to believe in, you're correct. Whether you want to believe in God or Shiva or Zeus, or maybe you've simply decided to devote your life to Science. It doesn't really matter what you choose, your fate is determined either way.
That's just how it seems to me. I'd rather think that he meshed the two ideas instead of having two conflicting views in the song. I get that no one can know for sure whether or not fate has planned out our lives already, so it makes sense that he hasn't really come to terms with it in the song, but I don't see the point of him arguing both sides as conflicting ideas. I'd rather believe that he's saying they're both right in their own way.